


On the Other Side of the Door

by DestinyFreeReally



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2019-03-18 19:05:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13687905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DestinyFreeReally/pseuds/DestinyFreeReally
Summary: While Mac's talking to Rebecca about Genoa, and Will's waiting for her outside the conference room.





	On the Other Side of the Door

    Charlie found Will, slumped against the corridor hall, and nodded his head, unsurprised.   
  
    “You want this?” Charlie bent to Will with a drink in his hand. “I’d sit down next to you but I’d have to leave my knees down there, permanently.”   
  
    Taking the drink, Will looked up at Charlie and only offered a weak smile. Every seven or so minutes, Will checked his watch, and checked the door, and still waited. Three hours, and he just watched the minutes tick by, wondering what Mackenzie McHale was in that room confessing to. Genoa was a mess, there wasn’t a person in the building who wouldn’t attest to that, but Will didn’t dump the load on Mackenzie’s shoulders… But somehow every time he looked at her, she looked like the world was dragging her lower and lower.   
  
     “It’s after midnight,” Will looked at his watch with a grimace. “You should go home, Charlie. We should all go home; this thing’s gonna go on for months, we can’t sprint if we’re gonna marathon.” Will left out that he was thinking of Mac, with her alarm probably going off at five fucking something am so she could do something mundane like run on the treadmill or catch the morning news.   
  
     Eyeing the door to the conference room, Charlie smiled.   
  
    “If Mac wanted to tap out, she would have,” taking his drink back from Will, Charlie slugged the rest of it back. “Besides, I doubt she’s slept since Genoa anyway. Have you?” Letting the accusation hang, Charlie nodded at Will’s silence. “Have you and Mackenzie ever been bowling?” He asked, and not for the first time in his life, Charlie Skinner confounded Will McAvoy. Confounded and exasperated, but maybe it was just that late at night.   
  
    “Bowling? The woman’s allergic to sports; no, we’ve never been-”   
  
    “Mac’s been bowling,” Charlie countered, and remembered a different Mac than the one that was in talking to Rebecca. “After Northwestern, you were on vacation with… Katie Couric?” Charlie tried to remember.   
  
    “Erin Andrews,” Will corrected, shaking his head.   
  
    “After Northwestern, you were on vacation with Megyn Kelly,” Charlie ignored Will’s eyeroll and kept on, “and I looked up Mackenzie McHale. I found her, just this side of drunk on a weekday afternoon, in a bowling alley with two-for-one drinks or something. You shouldn’t take her bowling, she wasn’t very good,” Charlie offered that last part like it was vital to the story.   
  
    “I told you, she’s got that sports allergy,” Will nodded, running his hand down his face. “We’re not gonna let her pursue a WPBA Championship, Charlie, this isn’t on Mac.”   
  
    “I think the WPBA plays pool-” Charlie started.   
  
    “Well, we won’t let her pursue that, either. It wasn’t… Genoa wasn’t her fault.” With his head down, Will tried to imagine where in the Genoa story Mackenzie was with Rebecca on the other side of the door. One of his legs was starting to go numb with pins and needles.   
  
    “I know that, and you know that, but Mac seems to think-”   
  
    “We’ll convince her she’s wrong,” Will said, definitively, and nodded to himself. “We’ll convince her.”   
  
     "Starting tomorrow," Charlie nodded, "right now I need to go home to my wife and sleep off tonight's bullshit." Walking away, Charlie turned back, "You could at least have an intern bring you a chair or something, Will."   
  
    Looking up at the door again, Will checked his watch, and smiled at Charlie. "I'm fine."  
  
   He’d never convinced Mackenzie of anything, ever, but… drastic times, and all.


End file.
